From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2004-09-04T12:54:52+09:00
Subject: OK... :) question about hash and array literals

It has always bothered me a little that [...] and {...} do not
call Array.new and Hash.new respectively.

I assume this is handled closer to parse time, for speed?

Is there a method that does get called (I think not), or could
in theory such a thing be implemented?

Example:

   class Hash
     def Hash.literal(*pairs)
       pairs.each do |pair|
         k, v = pair
         puts "Adding key #{k}, value #{v}"
       end
       super  # or whatever
     end
   end

   x = {1=>2, 3=>4}    # Output: Adding key 1, value 2
                       #         Adding key 3, value 4

And yes, this is related again to my wanting an ordered arbitrarily
indexable collection with a convenient literal notation.

Just curious...

Hal